UV and soft x-ray photodynamics of molecular ions

Introduction

The imaging of individual molecular fragmentation events with fast ion beams
has recently been successfully implemented at the new
Free Electron Laser light source FLASH
(DESY, Hamburg, Germany). Molecular ions offer rich photodynamics
on their excited, often coupled, potential surfaces when they are broken up in
parts by ultraviolet or soft x-ray radiation. Experimental data on the cross
sections and product channels resulting from this photodynamics are extremely
scarce for ionized molecules. Moreover, the fast-beam fragmentation imaging
technique uniquely provides access to the complete fragmentation dynamics,
including the neutral fragments often remaining unobserved in photofragmentation
studies of polyatomic molecules with targets at rest using standard techniques.